[This week, the Think Tank tackles a seminal work of 1980’s literature: the lyrics to Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Stay tuned next week for music theory analysis.]
Literary Theory, Mlawski
Living on a Prayer, the New Criticism reading: The lyrics start with the claim that this story happened “once upon a time, not so long ago,” which is our cue to read the text as a modern day fairytale. What happens in the text itself, however, is not the stuff of fairytale at all. “Tommy,” our dock-worker, is no knight in shining armor, though he tries to be by putting his six-string in hock. But, like Prince Charming in the fairy stories of old, Tommy does represent Everyman, the ideal. Likewise, “Gina” is no princess, but she is indeed a damsel in distress, the Everywoman in need of protection. Thus, the “once upon a time” introduction to the song is meant to be a somewhat ironic reference that suggests that “Living on a Prayer” is at once a fairytale and something of a satire of one.
Living on a Prayer, Marxist reading: Bon Jovi is “working for the man” indeed. While, at first glance, “Living on a Prayer” seems to be a paean to the working class couples of the world, the text ultimately is meant as an opiate for the masses. It suggests that the poor workers of the world must “hold onto what they’ve got,” rather than rising up against their capitalist oppressors. The music video corroborates this claim. The band sings sadly about the plight of Tommy and Gina, yet the video on the screen is of the band’s members in expensive outfits, being worshiped at a concert, a bastion of capitalism. There is a clear discrepancy between the lyrics of the text and the setting the song is being performed in. Can any song about the poor by the rich count as true art?
Living on a Prayer, Feminist reading: Interesting to look at is the construction of gender in “Living on a Prayer.” Tommy has a typically “male” job as a dock worker; Gina has a typically “female” job as a waitress. When Tommy loses his income due to union troubles, he immediately feels emasculated and overcompensates by going into Protective Cave Man mode. He hocks his six-string—which, incidentally, he didn’t use to make pansy “art”; he rather “made it talk” “tough” (so tough). Then, he spends the rest of the song trying to convince his wife not to leave, because, without a wife to provide for (even if he can’t actually provide), he is not a real man. The question is never asked, though: why does Gina dream of running away? Is it only the lack of money? Or is it something more? Has Tommy been lashing out at her, beating her? Does he come home and make her talk, like he used to do with his six-string? We don’t know, because the male narrator does not tell us.
Living on a Prayer, Reader Response reading: Man, Bon Jovi rocks!
Living on a Prayer, Deconstructionist reading: Man, Bon Jovi sucks!
Living for the Fight: The Dockworker’s Strike of 1977, Belinkie
The strike, which began on October 1, was a “selective” one. That is, dockworkers only refused to unload cargo from container ships, which were handled largely by machines and thus took jobs away from longshoremen. But Tommy is clearly a young man, and if there wasn’t enough work to go around during the strike, the more senior union members would probably get dibs.
The strike wasn’t just tough for Tommy–it was pretty tough for America. Over 70% of maritime cargo was cut off from the east coast. According to the Washington Post:
The strike has meant tens of thousands of layoffs in other industries and a loss of more than $1.3 billion in the gross national product… It has tied up more than $4 billion worth of freight, including such things as Christmas tree lights and components for Star Wars toys manufactured in the Far East…
“2-Month Dock Strike May End This Week,” Bill Peterson. The Washington Post, November 27, 1977
Keep in mind, this is 1977. A lot of the economy is based around Star Wars toys.
But Tommy’s story has a happy ending. On November 14, the ILA announced a tentative settlement that gave the longshoremen virtually everything they wanted. The workers received pay increases of more than 30 per cent. They also got better job security, and protection against being replaced by machines. The higher pay was even backdated to June 1.
So when Tommy went back to work unloading Star Wars toys in early December, there was a check for at least $500 waiting for him. Think he’ll be able to buy his six string back?
The Battle Hymn of New Jersey, Fenzel
“How do you reconcile this two statements?
‘We got each other.’
‘You live for the fight when that’s all that you got.'”
I took the challenge. Two possible interpretations:
Since it doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not, but everything is for love, for love, then the song praises the real-time experience of being in a relationship strained by poor finances, not the value of the relationship despite the struggle.
That was a mouthful, so let me clarify: It is a good thing that Tommy and Gina are facing adversity as a couple. It is not a good thing in itself that Tommy and Gina face adversity. It is not a good thing in itself that Tommy and Gina are a couple.
Therefore, the value derived from having nothing but a fight and nothing but a girlfriend are the same thing. Each is referential to the other. We are coming at this relationship from the possibly unsavory standpoint that, in this world, the things about relationships that are not hardships either don’t exist or don’t matter. Furthermore, the value of hardship and perseverance are not realized outside the purpose of a relationship.
Or
“We’ve got each other,” is said by Tommy and Gina, but “You live for the fight when it’s all that you‘ve got” is said by Bon Jovi himself. For several reasons, not the least of which being the considerable stress under which Tommy and Gina live, Bon Jovi is the more reliable narrator. The contradiction is Bon Jovi’s way of cluing us in to what is really going on, because Tommy and Gina are lying to each other and to us.
Gina first says “We’ve got each other” to herself and to Tommy as a way of justifying and encouraging herself to keep supporting Tommy financially. It is later said by Tommy to try to prevent Gina from leaving him and to stop her from crying in the night, because “Gina dreams of running away.”
This is a relationship that is on the brink of collapse that has very little intrinsic reason to exist. Tommy and Gina seek to justify it by narrativizing it. They are looking for reasons to stay together, and with the risk of their imminent separation, it’s probable that they do not, in fact, “got each other.” The assurance is offered as an empty platitude in service to what they actually have: namely, the fight.
Bon Jovi is telling us on the sly that it is in service to “the fight” that Tommy and Gina stay together, not in service to each other or to their relationship.
Synthesis
Livin’ on a Prayer is a battle hymn for the war of the heart. By coming up short of finding salvation or romance or of justifying struggle for its own sake, it does what all great war songs do — it finds the neccessary combination of the use of force with the purpose for battle. It finds why fighting is what we must do as opposed to other things, why we must fight in this interest instead of others, and why the two necessities are consistent and dependent on one another.
Of course, it is a metaphorical fight, but with these songs, much of the fight is always metaphorical. Battle hymns cheer on workers or support staff as much as soldiers, and soldiers who are transporting materiel or offering logistical support as much as those who are in battle. Battle hymns are about consensus.
And what two things do people in New Jersey have greater consensus on than the difficulty of personal finance and the difficulty of personal relationships? Jersey born and Jersey bred (and when I die, I’ll be Jersey dead), I can think of none.
It makes everybody in the bar so hyped up and happy/angry because it unites us all against the common foes of our people.
That battle hymn is the Prayer on which my people are Livin’. It sure ain’t a paternoster.
An Existential Nihilistic Reading, Lee
I hate to end this study on a down note, but I can’t let it end without pointing out the sad truth: “Livin’ on a Prayer” is not an inspirational battle hymn. It’s an ode to existential nihilism. I am, of course, deriving this from one key line in the prechorus:
“It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not.”
Wikipedia defines existential nihilism as the belief that “life is without meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.” Tommy and Gina’s final outcome, the product of their struggle, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make a difference. This is the exact opposite from the feeling of romantic, valiant struggle that one typically gets when hearing this song in a bar, stadium, or wedding reception. We fight, love, and struggle, because we care about the wellbeing of ourselves and those around us. In other words, it very much does make a difference if we make it or not. If no one–not my family, my neighbors, my nation, God, the universe–places any value in my actions and the final outcome of my life, then why would I bother striving towards a desirable outcome (making it) in life? Why bother doing good things for others? Perhaps life is best spent struggling simply for the sake of struggling (as Fenzel suggests) and in the pursuit of the hedonistic pleasure of the moment.
This leaves us with only one thing to do. I hereby add Bon Jovi to the pantheon of Heroes of Nihilism:
SARTRE
"Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance."
SEINFELD
"Yadda, yadda, yadda."
BLAKE
"Justice doesn't matter, alright? Because twenty years from now we're all gonna be dust."
BON JOVI
"It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not."
A Pedantic Lyrical Quibble, Wrather
How you read the pre-chorus of Livin’ on a Prayer depends a great deal on how you supply the missing punctuation. It’s either:
We’ve got each other, and that’s a lot!
For love? We’ll give it a shot!
Or:
We’ve got each other,
And that’s a lot for love.
We’ll give it a shot!
In the first instance, having each other is posited as “a lot” irrespective of context: it’s a lot for love or for any number of other things. By contrast, the second instance, having each other is only a lot “for love,” the implication being that love is a special case with requirements less strenuous than those of life’s other circumstances. In other words, having each other may be a lot for love, but it’s not a lot for, say, getting a bank loan.
Settling on a reading here turns out to be very important for understanding the relationship between having each other and giving it a shot. Heuristically, let us posit an unspoken interjection after the word “Love” to provide the deductive link in both of the examples, supra. In the first case, it would be something like: “We’ve got each other, and that’s a lot! For love? [Hell yeah!] We’ll give it a shot!” This gives the ensuing chorus a triumphalist, or at least an exultant, cast.
In the second case, we’d have to understand something like: “We’ve got each other, and that’s a lot for love. [What the hell!] We’ll give it a shot!” There is much less exultation and certainty here, and this, I think, comports more fully with a sense of “livin’ on a prayer” and not, say, on a bank loan.
The melody and rhythm, too, seem to support the second reading (though we’re not really talking about the music until next week). “For love” fulfills a descending melodic line, and the flow of the rhythm suggests it is connected to the preceding and not the following clause.
Ultimately I must support the second reading. And yet, the play between the two seems to generate poetical tension, an indeterminacy which must to some degree be responsible for the power of the lyric in this classic rock song.